Twenty-five years after the end of the Great Dragon war saw Equestria battling the Draconic Alliance for pony survival against a deranged elder dragon. Now only three separate elder dragon run city-states are all that remain of the once powerful alliance. Yet even after so long there are wounds that run deep that could threaten that peace in more ways then one.

Floating high above the ground the city of Los Pegasus paints a strange picture across the sky. It's year long circular route taking all over the lands of Equestria, even as most marvel at the ingenuity required to bring the needed enchantments to marry stone, earth, and commerce to the clouds. A veritable city in the sky, Los Pegasus attract's ponies and others from all across the world to its myriad of casinos, restaurants, hotel's, and attractions. With most of the buildings confined to the strip those who wander away from the central area find stone and soil giving way to clouds very quickly, though plenty of unicorns offer cloud walks spells and carriages can be seen all across the city pulled by teams of pegasus as they bring ponies to and from the city.

Why her father liked or even kept the Daffodil using such an old control scheme never made sense to her, but unless she ripped the entire thing out she couldn’t replace it and he refused everytime she’d asked. So now as Los Pegasus and the air ship docks came into view she found her muscles sore as she shift her body inside the odd control rig. Least she’d replaced the call tubes with a more efficient intercom system. “Alright everypony look alive, coming up on the docks shortly. Waiting on clearance from LPC.” Killing the mic she grumbles to herself as the old airship slows to a holding pattern. “Least sis and dad have their magic to make this easier.”

"Oh, I'm sure you'll get used to it. You know how us Earth Ponies are, quite a resilient bunch aren't we?" Blondie piped up, walking right up behind Silvershine without bothering to knock. "A little bit of sweat and hard work, and things usually get done."

"But I digress, I didn't come here to tell you something you already knew." The boss looked over the skyline, before a large smile grew on her face. The mare was pleased to be home after the longest time. "As a prominent figure in this city, I welcome you to Los Pegasus. The moment we step off this airship, we will officially be on my turf, do you understand what I'm saying?"

As the ship began to pull into the dock, the mare couldn't help but chuckle. "Well, I'm glad there's an understanding. But so long as you understand, just remember, you're all in essence, my guests. And I generally prefer to treat my guests with hospitality."

"Unless of course they decide to be unruly, but anypony would if somepony just barged into your house, and decided to knock over a few vases or two." She added for good measure.

With a shudder the Daffodil locked into place in the docking cradle. Shutting down the motors and killing power to the props the mare started untangling herself from the control rig. An hour would be quick to leave, she doubted it’d be that easy, nevermind some of the cryptic radio chatter coming out of Ponyville. “I’m here for one thing, once we have it we’ll be out of your mane. Besides,” she grinned at the Mafioso, “I just react to what other ponies do.”

Crouched atop the airship's envelope, Kroll was firmly anchored in place by cabling fastened to his armor. He continuously scanned the area for any sign of incoming threats, though he doubted the likelihood of any pirates coming to pay them a visit. What did catch the tercel off guard was the nature of Los Pegasus, as he had assumed that it was a city on solid ground and traveling by airship was a matter of convenience, not necessity. A floating city. It wasn't the first time the mercenary had seen one, but he was never able to quite get over how troublesome the concept seemed to be, especially when relying on something as precarious as clouds for the foundation. Leave it to Equestrians to come up with such an idea.

Seeing that they had began to pull into the docks, the griffon took that as his cue to head down. After untying himself from the cables, Kroll simply allowed himself to drop off from the envelope's curved surface, hurtling towards the starboard side of the gondola below. He waited until he was nearly level with the ship's deck before flaring his wings out, using the momentum to glide in a wide arc around the ship's stern and circle back in for a landing from the bow.

As he came in, the tercel bent his wings at an angle so he could start bleeding speed. As he did so, two tailhooks deployed from his leg armor and began to drag along the wooden deck of the airship, eventually snagging in a big enough space between two planks. The griffon touched down with a heavy clank, staggering forward a bit as he folded his wings and retracted the tailhooks back into their housing. Pleased with himself, Kroll made his way over to the railing to wait for the final steps of the docking process to be completed.

While the dock workers moved about, the mercenary scanned what he could see of the city before him. Everything seemed to be far more organized and structured than Appleoosa could ever hope to be, especially in terms of security. He made a mental note to remain mindful of his actions and surroundings, as causing trouble up here could very well complicate things.

Iris watched the ship descend from the bow of the ship, brushing her mane and coat to a shining polish. Los Pegasus, it wasn't quite home, but as a hideout for some of the worst drug dealers in Equestria it was practically her office and playground. If it weren't for the circumstances she would probably be plotting out which holes she would be frequenting, either to find dealers or to relax with Silver, but today she had no such luck. The plan was to pull in, pull out, then go figure out if she should be dealing with family stuff or taking Silver to her favorite pub for dinner.

She met the mafia mistress and her foalhood friend at the gangplank and hopped off as soon as the ship was docked. "Lets go find the shiny."

“ Keep the engines ready, hopefully won’t take long, but if we’re not back in thirty shut it down and restock. ” Merely nodding the engineer headed back below decks as Silver stepped onto the stone pier of Los Pegasus dock. Following in Iris wake she looked towards Blondie and Kroll at the groups head, behind Longshot and Lucky were stepping off the Daffodil.

Giving a rather theatrical curtsy, she walked the ragtag bunch down the gangplank while sounding like somewhat of a tour guide.

"As I have stated before, welcome to my fair city of Los Pegasus! Since this dock is wide open, you can already see the beautiful skyline and the vintage walkways that dash here and there between the clouds." She said cheerfully, practically hopping straight off, and leading the them towards the far opening towards the city. "That tall building over there, with the shining windows? The pride and joy of the city, my offices and my base of operations of course."

She looked back towards the others. "Impressive isn't it? I'd have to say most of the ponies who live here are fairly satisfied with their lives, and any visitors usually leave happy, although probably with empty wallets with some of the gambling venues we have here. Or the shows, those are fairly popular among families."

"Although, I'm sure none of us are here for entertainment are we?" She said, with a strange smile on her face. "Before we venture off towards my little base of operations, I gotta ask you all to do one thing first."

As if on cue, a loud ruckus suddenly broke out all around the docks, wood smashing and crates breaking open as ponies suddenly came out of the woodworks, all carrying weapons of various kinds. From makeshift shanks, to shiny guns, ponies of all races surrounded the group with their tools of violence drawn, all directed at the newcomers.

"Kindly place your weapons on the floor. I'd prefer for this to not end in a bloodbath." She said. However her expression was disarmingly honest, as if she wasn't intending to start a fight. "All of them, even your hidden tools and cartridges if you will."

Iris was about to step off towards the base when the throng came out of seemingly nowhere. "Fine. But I want this to be mutual. You and your goons have their weapons come off too." she said, slipping off her saddle that contained her multitude of darts, knives and prepackaged poisons, but leaving on her hip flask. "The bottle won't kill anyone I swear. I just don't want to go through this place without some kind of bribes, never know what would happen" she said as one of the guards eyed the silver container strapped under her dress. The clothing that she wore still contained a multitude of items tucked within it, but all of them would be proven to be inert if inspected, and most of the items would be totally harmless even it combined, a pouch of bits, some paper and pens to write dragon fire notes on, a vile of perfume and some other personal items were all that she had left. Granted, most of these things could be turned into a weapon with the proper application of magic, but then again so could several everyday items Iris might encounter on the streets of Los Pegasus.

Everypony wasn’t even off the ship and Blondie was trying to assert dominance already. When iris started disarming the mare held up a hoof. “We’re not doing this Blondie, because if we do I’m dismantling your entire empire right here right now.” Behind her the lines on the Daffodil were cut, though the ship remained, only two of the gun ports opened. Around Sliver the smell of orange blossoms seemed to come from nowhere, though the mare made no movement toward her weapons.

The mob boss shrugged. "Well, to be fully honest it wasn't my idea. Although I am certainly glad you said that."

She looked up to the rafters and called out to a particularly short red pegasi standing among the others. "You heard her Flare, I'm sure nobody wants our empire dismantled today, right?"

The underboss gritted her teeth unhappily, before nodding and began barking out orders. "Alright you pieces of garbage, you heard the boss! Pick up your weapons away and clean up the mess!"

There was a collective rumble of noise as everypony went to their own business, a lot of them complaining about it being a waste of time, or feeling as if they had gotten the short end of the stick hiding in a box. A couple were cleaning up with brooms already.

"I'm sincerely sorry for that." Blondie said, bowing apologetically, however looking rather happy. "That was plan B for if ever I got kidnapped. Classic old set-up, works most of the time for ponies dumb enough to try and kidnap me. First time it's ever happened, so I was a little excited to see everypony in position and wanted to see how it went."

"Although..." The mob boss said seriously, at her second in command as she touched down. She gave the red pegasi a look. "I was pretty sure Lab would've been a bit better in relaying information back here that we had made an agreement."

"They forced one of my soldiers to lay low, and made me knock out another. I had a bone to pick." Flare said rather nonchalantly, shrugging with no remorse. "A couple bullets wouldn't have hurt anypony."

The tercel glared angrily at Bronze Scales and Flare from behind his helmet's faceplate as he lowered his weapons, having drawn them instinctively with the sudden appearance of the mafioso's underlings. He was dumbstruck by the pompous behaviour of Blondie, but was relieved to see that his boss wasn't having any of it this time around either.Still bristling with anger, the griffon stayed quiet in the back of the group and let Silvershine do the talking, keeping a wary eye out for any further signs of trouble.

Shaking her head Silver was happy none of hers had engaged, even now she was fighting down the urge to throw the entire deal out just to break the other mares muzzle. Instead she put a hoof to her eyes, “That makes two of us, now is it here or do we actually have to go into downtown?”

Iris straightened her saddle, concealing her personal arsenal and chemistry lab with the added bonus of helping her blend in with Equestria's sin city. She shook her hips a bit to check the security of her poisonous stash and then looked at Blondie. "I'd love to go downtown, it's one of my favorite places. But seriously can we just get the glorified necklace back?"

"Now you two should know that if we brought it, in some shape or form, something'll happen that'll just whisk it out of our hands." Blondie said with an amused laugh. "So unfortunately yes, we must go downtown. So enjoy the sights, take it in, and try and take it easy while we go and retrieve it from our treasury."

She wanted to argue, to put her hoof down, but no matter what she kept picturing just what Blondie spoke of. A random gryphon, Pegasus, teen dragon, darting past vanishing into the nearby clouds. Some insane unicorn ripping the element from their hooves before diving into the clouds beyond. It should sound stupid, and yet given the last twenty four hours it didn’t. “Lead on.”

Kroll rolled his shoulders uncomfortably as he swiveled his head back and forth, constantly scanning their surroundings as the group ventured closer and closer to the downtown area of Los Pegasus. The idea of following a criminal further into their territory didn't sit right with the griffon, and he didn't like how passive his boss was acting in their present situation either. She was in a hurry to get this over with--that much was clear--but seemingly throwing caution to the wind was probably the worst thing she could possibly do at the moment. They had already been ambushed once within the first hour or so of their arrival here; at this point they might as well just kill themselves to save the criminals the trouble.

Nonetheless, the tercel kept these gripes and many others to himself for a change.